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Bioactive Compounds in Foods, Beverages, and By-Products and Their Functional Potential

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 December 2025 | Viewed by 414

Special Issue Editors


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REQUIMTE/LAQV, Laboratory of Bromatology and Hydrology, Department of Chemical Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
Interests: food science and technology; chemistry nutrition and dietetics; biochemistry and molecular; biology agriculture
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Department of Bromatological Analysis, College of Pharmacy, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil
Interests: food science and technology; food sustainability; food quality control; food packaging; biopolymers
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Department of Bromatological Analysis, College of Pharmacy, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil
Interests: food science; food biochemistry; functional food; functional protein and peptides; bioactive peptides; seed-derived peptide bioactivity
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Bioactive compounds exert several beneficial properties for human health, such as reducing the risk of developing chronic diseases, e.g., cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and cardiovascular diseases, and modulating immune responses, age-related diseases, and anti-microbial agents.

To achieve this, they need to be identified, their concentration determined, and these effects investigated. Furthermore, by-products of food processing have also been studied as alternative sources of nutrients and bioactive compounds.

Establishing the chemical composition of raw material is critical to determining its nutritional value and identifying potential nutraceutical molecules with health‐promoting effects.

This Special Issue aims to expand the knowledge on bioactive compounds in foods, beverages, and by-products and their functional potential.

We welcome the submission of original research manuscripts and reviews that explore conventional and analytical techniques, including spectroscopy, chromatography, and mass spectrometry, to provide valuable information about bioactive molecules, nutritional composition, potential contaminants, and allergens in foods, beverages, and by-products.

Prof. Dr. Maria Beatriz Prior Pinto Oliveira
Dr. Carolina De Souza
Dr. Ederlan S. Ferreira
Prof. Dr. Alessio Scarafoni
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • bioactive compounds in foods, beverages, and/or food by-products
  • unconventional raw materials as a source of bioactive compounds
  • bioactive compounds in human health and diseases
  • bioactive compounds: focus on its mechanism of action
  • bioavailability of the bioactive compounds
  • studies (in silico, in vitro, vivo, and clinical) with a focus on bioactive potential
  • analytical techniques to identify bioactive compounds
  • trends and advances in bioactive compounds analysis

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 1682 KB  
Article
Novel ST-Specific Molecular Target-Based Method for Simultaneous and Quantitative Detection of Staphylococcus aureus ST7, ST188 and ST398
by Baoqing Zhou, Xiang Nie, Xudong Mao, Jiaxin Chen, Jiawen Chen, Bingfeng Ma and Xin Wu
Molecules 2025, 30(19), 3889; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules30193889 - 26 Sep 2025
Viewed by 258
Abstract
Staphylococcus aureus is a globally crucial foodborne pathogen that can cause diarrhea, vomiting, and bloodstream infection in immunocompromised individuals. S. aureus has three predominant sequence types (STs) (ST7, ST188 and ST398) that are prevalent clones in both food and clinical cases. This study [...] Read more.
Staphylococcus aureus is a globally crucial foodborne pathogen that can cause diarrhea, vomiting, and bloodstream infection in immunocompromised individuals. S. aureus has three predominant sequence types (STs) (ST7, ST188 and ST398) that are prevalent clones in both food and clinical cases. This study aimed to screen ST-specific targets for S. aureus ST7, ST188 and ST398, and then developed a novel rapid and accurate assay for the detection of these three predominant S. aureus STs in food. A total of 505 Staphylococcus strain genome sequences including 371 sequences of 58 different STs and 134 other non-target S. aureus ST genome sequences were subjected to pan-genome analysis; we successfully screened five novel ST-specific targets (group_10498 and group_10499 target for S. aureus ST7, group_9415 and group_9419 target for S. aureus ST188, group_9911 target for S. aureus ST398). The excellent specificity and sensitivity of all the targets were confirmed by PCR assays. Based on these molecular targets, mPCR and qPCR methods were developed for specifically identifying S. aureus’ three predominant STs without non-target bacterial interference. The limits of detection (LODs) for the mPCR assay in artificially contaminated milk were determined to be 104 CFU/mL for ST7, 105 CFU/mL for ST188, and 104 CFU/mL for ST398, while the LODs achieved by the qPCR method were 8.6 × 102 CFU/mL, 1.2 × 102 CFU/mL, and 6.4 × 103 CFU/mL, respectively. The testing results for actual food samples suggested that the developed mPCR or qPCR assays could be used as an alternative to standard MLST analysis, for the rapid and reliable identification of S. aureus STs. The novel molecular detection technology established in this study provides an efficient and reliable detection method for the prevention and control of predominant S. aureus ST contamination in food and has important application potential and promotion prospects. Full article
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